The Ultimate Book Marketing Plan for Self-Published Authors: Introduction

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​​Hey, don’t skip the introduction,
​there's very important information here!

​If you are a self-published author and struggling to get massive leverage with your current book promotions, I have reason to believe that this is going to be the number one blog series you are going to want to follow.

Moreover, once I transform this series into the book that I am envisioning, it will be the number one book you will need on your shelf. It will be something that you will come back to time and time again.
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This series won’t be up on my blog for long, once this book is out on the market this series will be gone for good. With that said, the only way you'll be able to get ahold of this empowering information is through buying the book.

​For the record, I want to make it perfectly clear that I am not an academic theorist. I have written and authored several books, and have tried just about everything there is to try when it comes to marketing my work.

​Plus, I’ve recently come by one of the greatest marketing minds on the planet in the person of Dan Kennedy, so you know a lot of what I am going to be showing you will be Direct Response oriented, both online and offline.

With that said, this blog-to-book series was inspired by Dan’s book, The Ultimate Marketing Plan (AFF), which I highly recommend getting a copy of when you get a chance. 

Now, as for Dan's book, he gives some amazing tips about how to market brick and mortar businesses. However, what I want to do with this series is to give you tips and advice as to how to market your books as a respected and admired writer, author, and thought leader. 

I will be giving you examples and real-life stories of how authors just like you implemented these direct-response marketing strategies and began seeing massive results in as little as weeks instead of months.  

I tell you all this for one purpose: so you know what is in this blog series is thoroughly grounded in real-life experience and repetitive success, so you can confidently invest your time, energy, effort, and money in implementing The Ultimate Book Marketing Plan for Self-Published Authors.

​The Bridge Between Having a Dream
​and Living Your Dream

​Many have the dream of living the writer’s life, but only a few actually turn that dream into a reality. Why is that?

Well, I'm glad you asked. You see, the bridge between having a dream and living your dream is thinking and planning. In other words, dreamers fantasize and thinkers materialize.

​And just for added icing on the cake: readers dream and writers think.

​​Now, let me make this perfectly clear, I'm not against dreaming. I think we all should dream and that dreaming has its place in achieving success.

​In fact, there are really only three steps to success and those steps are:

• Step One: Dreaming
• Step Two: Thinking and Planning
• Step Three: Living the Dream

The problem is that most people never move out of step one. And I am going to be real with you, the real reason for this is nothing but pure laziness. You see, there is a truth that I would like to make known to you right now. 

People will always do what they WANT to do over what they know they NEED to do.

Think of it like this: You heard of a “To-Do” list, right? Well, let me introduce you to the “Want To-Do” list and the “Need To-Do” list.

The “Want To-Do” list is always fueled by passion or emotion. The “Need To-Do” list is always written by logic or reasoning. And more often than not, we will cross out items (notice I said cross out and not cross off) on the need-to-do list so that we can cross off the items that we put on the want-to-do list.
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And another truth is this: items on the want-to-do list get done faster and more proficiently than the items on the need-to-do list.

The key to success is being able to give the same kind of emotion and passion to the items on the need-to-do list that we do for the want-to-do list. Or, in other words, simply move items from the need-to-do list to the want-to-do list by inserting passion and emotion into each item. A paradigm shift is required here.

Consider this analogy: Think about the concept of a GPS (Global Positioning System): 

• Step 1 is inserting your destination’s address.
• Step 2 is to let the GPS calculate or compute a route in which to take in order to reach your destination.
• Step 3 is to proceed on the route that the GPS gives you until you reach your destination.

In other words, step 1, inserting your destination address is the dreaming stage. It is envisioning the reality that you want to experience, such as living the writer’s dream life.

Step 2, the calculating or computing of a route to get to your destination is that of the thinking and planning stage, which we are going to discuss in great detail in this blog series.

​Finally, step 3, the proceeding on the route the GPS gives is the journey you take to living the writer’s dream life.

Obviously, since you are a self-published author, a lot of thinking and planning has gone into the writing process and organization of putting your book together, but that same kind of energy and passion must go into your book's marketing as well. 

Before we really get into the meat and potatoes of this blog series, I want to mention two things: 1) What is “marketing” anyways? 2) What are the objectives in developing your own Ultimate Book Marketing Plan?

You see, I do have a B.S degree in Business Management where I have taken many marketing and business planning courses. Therefore, I do have an academic understanding and definition of the word marketing and a higher learning perspective of business planning, but I don’t want to give you a collegiate text book definition of marketing – nor, do I want to give you an academia version of a business plan and system.

You see, we are working on marketing your book and making it a best seller, not trying to impress a banker, or get a passing grade from a strict college professor who has probably never written or published an article let alone a book in his or her tenure academic career life.

So, with that said, an actual, in the trenches, wordsmith definition of book marketing is: Getting the right message of your book to the right readers for your book via the right media and methods – effectively, efficiently, and profitably.  

Dan Kennedy has always mentioned in his books and seminars that the key to marketing effectively is having the right message and delivering that message to the right prospects by way of the right marketing medium or platform. And just as much as this applies to brick and mortar businesses, it applies to your book as well. 

The definition that I have shared with you above is probably, in and of itself, worth the price of purchasing this book a million times over. It probes or drives out questions about your book marketing efforts, such as: 

• Is your book marketing giving off the most powerful, persuasive, intriguing, compelling, and fascinating message as possible? Or is your book's marketing message too ordinary, dull, boring, mundane, unexciting, easily ignored and forgettable? Or worse, just about cheap or lowest prices?
• Have you determined precisely whom your book’s marketing message is for and figured out how to get that message in front of the right audience – quite possibly at the exclusion of all other audiences? Or is your book’s marketing message a vague generality, for anybody – and thus for nobody? Are you shooting your arrow (your book’s marketing message) up into the sky hoping that it will fall and hit your target market rather than aiming directly for your target head on?
• Are you wisely investing in the most appropriate media for delivering your book’s marketing message to the specific readers in your target market? Or are you using marketing media because every other author seems to be or because it is popular? Note: different media are best for different book genres and different target markets at different times.
• Is your book marketing efforts both effective and efficient? Or are you choosing the easiest or simplest marketing means out of laziness or ignorance or “to busyness” or in surrender to poverty consciousness and stingy behavior?  
• Are you accurately messaging and tracking the true, net return on investment (ROI) from each book marketing campaign investment that you take? Or are you guessing through these efforts? Or are you carrying around opinions not verified by facts and figures?

If all of this sounds too complex for you and your book, think again.

​If you are a new self-published author and have a limited budget you are going to really what to listen to this next point: When cash-flow and income is small, every good opportunity missed and every bad move made will have life threatening consequences for your book – I guarantee it!

If you want to be a successful writer and author you need to become a master of marketing, even more so than the marketing teams at major book publishers.

You see, large traditional publishing companies can – and must- do things differently than the sole proprietor author. They have the manpower to macromanage, but you have to be able to micromanage your marketing. 

The truth is, you have to embrace the fact that you are the initial marketer of your book, and you must do this for yourself extremely well. Better than than the marketing teams or departments at traditional publishers.

My objective with this blog series is to equip and empower you with many of the basic, fundamental, most reliable book marketing success factors that I use as a writer, author, and consultant when helping self-published authors, like yourself, craft up (or recraft) the most powerful book marketing message possible; choose the most appropriate book marketing media, and use it in the most appropriate way; and get their book’s message to the their most valuable market of readers.

Your objective should be to put the success factors mentioned in this blog series together into a marketing plan for advancing the success of your book(s).
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Believe me when I say this: I understand if you detest planning. In fact, I do as well; perhaps it is human nature to detest it. But a failure to plan is a plan to fail.

P.S. Thinkers and planners take action. Dreamers only, sit by and let opportunities pass. Are you going to let this opportunity slip by and let your competition steal your clients, customers, or readers and students? Or are you going to take action? 
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About William Ballard   
​People have referred to William has having the mind of a business man and the heart of a minister. Freelance writer, author, direct-response copywriter, blogger, and content marketing specialist, William Ballard, helps writers and authors, like you, broadcast their message across the Internet (and offline through direct-mail response style marketing) in order to be seen as experts in their field. 

​William started blogging back in 2007, but officially launched his freelance writing business in 2014. Since then, he has been featured in Entrepreneur, Writer's Digest, Wealthy Web Writer,  Writer's Weekly, THRIVE Global, and many others. His teachings and mentorship come from real-life experiences. Yet, none these "bragging rights" or "claims to fame" matter much to him. William's mission is to serve and help people like you attract high-value readers and clients, monetize the work you contribute to the community at large, scale your audience and overall reach, and generate a handsome living doing what you love.

To get access to William's advanced writing and business building content, consider becoming a Medium member, it is $5 bucks a month and provides you unlimited access to stories on Medium. And if you sign up using this link you will be supporting William as he provides value to you and the writing community at large. 

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